Speaking at the Liberal Democrat annual convention in Brighton today, Hughes made it clear to party delegates he saw no reason why fraud cases should be dealt with differently to other crimes.

In his keynote speech to conference he said: ‘Liberal Democrats defend strongly the continuation of the right to choose jury trial for serious offences – and I urge conference to reject the amendment which seeks to reduce this for complex fraud.’

Hughes’ address followed a proposed amendment, which called on conference delegates to agree that difficult fraud trials should be dealt with by a judge and assessors.